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VENTURA, CALIF. - The Uncommitted Spotlight Series continues after a jam packed summer of Prep Baseball California events, summer travel baseball, and other opportunities to evaluate players we will be recognizing some of the top remaining uncommitted players around the state. We will be looking at players from the 2026 class and 2027 classes across the upcoming weeks/months. 

We invite you to get to know them through the eyes of our Prep Baseball California staff of scouts both through our in person looks at players and/or the data-backed numbers collected at our events with our partnered companies. TrackMan, Blast Motion, and VALD Performance provide comparable data to project and evaluate players. All of these systems come together to give a clear picture at what colleges will get when a players steps onto their campus.

Today, we put the spotlight on an upward trending 2026 player who is featured inside the Top 175 of our 2026 California rankings. We are looking at SoCal '26 RHP/1B Eli Stephens from Chaminade High School in West Hills, Calif.. Stephens was a prominent arm on the Chaminade 2024 varsity squad which pushed for a Mission League title and added some depth to their lineup in a strong sophomore season for the burly two-way product. His 2025 season unfortunately was impacted by an injury that took him off the field early in the spring. The rising 2026 went to work on his body and athleticism to come back with a strong showing in the summer of 2025 before impressing in multiple live looks for our scouting staff in the SoCal Scouts League especially on the mound where his profile looks to be trending the best. These live looks back up an impressive showing on each side of the game for Stephens at the 2025 California State Games which backed up his solid performance at the 2025 San Diego Preseason All State and his debut on the Prep Baseball California platform stage at the 2024 Orange County Preseason ID.

Stephens has a two-way profile, but his ability on the mound has begun to separate even further from his solid RH hitting offensive profile. During scout ball looks our staff has seen Stephens up to 90 MPH with his FB that during the California State Games lived in the 86-88 MPH range while touching 89 several times during his outing. He mixes between a four seam shaped FB with spin rates above 2300 RPMs and averaging 16+" of IVB on the offering that is the higher velocity offering. Then he will feature a more running shaped two seam offering with upwards of 14+" of horizontal movement to his arm side while generating solid spin on the offering in the 2000 RPMs range. The operation for Stephens has cleaned up in the last two years of event and live looks from our staff from a higher effort more aggresive tempo down the mound in 2024 to the cleaner/lower effort operation he has deployed in the summer of 2025 and heading into the fall. The changes to his delivery come from a commitment to improving his body/athleticism during his time off the field with injury. Those changes have helped improve his offspeed offerings in addition to the quality of his delivery and fastball. Stephens will utilize a low 70's CB with spin rates in the low 2000 RPM range and features a deep vertical break that he can throw for strikes or bury below the zone for chase from hitters. From there he mixes in a low to mid 70's sweeping style SLD with upwards of 13+" of horizontal movement to his glove side that tunnels effectively off his two seam FB shape. The three pitch mix with two fastball shapes has given Stephens an arsenal that he can now attack all four quadrants of the strike zone to challenge hitters from both the RH and LH side of the plate. The upgrades in his physicality, athleticism, pitch mix and delivery operation are giving Stephens a long term starters profile for the next level.

The RH hitting Stephens does flash some two-way potential with an aggressive RH swing which generates impressive power at contact. He could be a middle to lower part of the order thumper for a program that values what he does with his offensive toolset. The hips rotate aggressively and can generate intriguing levels of torque with a peak rotational acceleration of 24.1 Gs while showing present fast hands up to 23.9 MPH peak hand speed and shows explosive present bat speed at 79.4 MPH in the swing. His explosive operation allows for Stephens to produces exit velocities above 100 MPH peaking at 101.7 while going above 90 MPH consistently with an average EV of 95.9 MPH. Eli had an 83% fly ball/line drive rate at the California State Games showing the impact potential he possesses from the RH side while generating 100% hard hit rate and an 83% sweet spot rate. His impact showed up not only in batting practice, but also during the game play portion where he hammered the baseball over the mulitple at bats he had at the State Games.

Stephens has built his body into a more sculpted physical frame at 6'2 213.6 lbs. in the last year shedding some of the softness to his frame and replacing it with muscle/strength gains. Those changes have not only showed up in his baseball metrics, but has made Stephens a better overall athlete who now runs the 60 yard sprint in 7.07 seconds posting solid burst with a 1.62 10 yard split and sound 19.4 MPH top end run speeds. He is a solid defender who has arm strength as a position player with his 88 MPH INF velocity showing well from 1B.

With an upward trending profile backed by a solid Soph. season on the mound at Chaminade, flashes of impact at the plate as a RH hitter, highly interesting improvements to his profile in the summer of 2025 Stephens has the type of profile that college programs should be keeping tabs on for their 2026 class.

College coaches and fans be sure to click on Stephen's profile to see full video and information.

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